Skip the navigation
)

Spam Issue Viewed As IT Security Failure

A surge in e-mail spam undermines user confidence in an otherwise solid security infrastructure.

By Vince Tuesday
January 13, 2003 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - The problem of unwanted e-mails may not be the biggest security threat my company faces, but it's a highly visible failure to our employees and threatens to taint the IT security group's good reputation.
One of the ways that staffers judge good security is if they can work free of fear. We score pretty well on that measure. Our managers don't fear that our business systems will be compromised or corrupted, our desktop users no longer fear virus infections, and I generally don't fear large security incidents looming on the horizon. Life is good. Apart from spam, that is.
Because many of our staffers work with customers, they often publish their e-mail addresses on our Web site and in our publications. These staffers get flooded with hundreds of rubbish messages along with real customer e-mails.
They get offered radio-controlled cars, free money from Nigeria and, perhaps most bizarrely, septic tanks. That flood is bad enough, but mixed in with all the commercial rubbish are darker-themed messages -- come-ons to pornographic Web sites and hate sites, as well as abusive e-mails.
These frontline staffers constantly face high volumes of offensive content, and until recently, we had done little about it.
The problem became bad enough that it presented a risk to our productivity. Staffers were worried by the content, our e-mail systems were spending time on spam rather than on customer e-mails, and the problem affected employees at all levels.
Turning to Blacklists
The first option we looked at was using a blacklist service, which takes spam reports, identifies the servers used and publishes the addresses so that our e-mail server can automatically shun further e-mails from those sources. But spammers move to new servers faster than the blacklist can keep up. Another drawback: Once a company is on the blacklist, its e-mail administrator must jump through hoops to get it removed. Meanwhile, any legitimate e-mail from that company is blocked. Blacklists are useful and have made a dent in spam volumes, but this tool alone wasn't good enough for us.
We ended up going with a more elaborate service from MessageLabs Ltd., a Minneapolis-based service provider we were already using for e-mail traffic virus scans. The company offers a service to label spam using both blacklists and heuristics. As far as I can tell, this means MessageLabs has found a set of features associated with spam, produced a weighting for those features and established a threshold above which something is marked as probable spam.
For example, if an e-mail says,



What is Tech Briefcase?
TechBriefcase is a new, free service where IT Professionals can Search, Store and Share IT white papers and content like this. Learn more
Bookmark content
Speed up your research efforts with content across the web.
Search and Store
Find the white papers you need. Create folders for any topic.
View Anywhere
Open your briefcase on your iPhone, tablet or desktop. Share with colleagues.
Don't have an account yet?
Additional Resources
Security KnowledgeVault
WHITE PAPER
Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All
WHITE PAPER
New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

Security White Papers
Driving Secure Enterprise File Sharing and Syncing in the Enterprise
GroupLogic's new activEcho is the industry's only secure Enterprise File Sharing and Synching solution that balances the need for simplicity for the end...
The Enterprise File Sharing Option
Enterprises and IT departments need to address several critical security issues when considering file sharing and syncing products. Many of today's solutions do...
Security Strategies to Virtualizing Internet-Facing Applications
The IT organization at Intel has set a goal to transition their enterprise to a private cloud for their Office and Enterprise applications....
Cloud Security Planning Guide
Cloud security considerations span protecting hardware and platform technologies in the data center to enabling regulatory compliance and defending cloud access through different...
Cloud Security Vendor Round Table
This vendor round table guide will help you to evaluate different cloud technology vendors and service providers based on a series of questions...
All Security White Papers
Security Webcasts
Live Webcast
Data Privacy and Protection in Production Environments: New Research from Ponemon Institute
Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 1:00 PM EDT / 10:00 AM PDT

In a recent study conducted by Ponemon Institute, fifty-five percent of respondents...
Data Privacy and Protection in Production Environments: New Research from Ponemon Institute
Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 1:00 PM EDT / 10:00 AM PDT

In a recent study conducted by Ponemon Institute, fifty-five percent of respondents...
Security Certifications 101 - BlackBerry and all those acronyms what do they mean and why they matter?
FIPS, Common Criteria, CAPS, AISEP, NFC, NIST, Fraunhofer SIT, CESG, DSD - these are just some of the government and industry certifications which...
BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 Security Overview
The presentation provides an overview of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 security capabilities and features, including: BlackBerry® Balance™ technology, BlackBerry® Bridge, data-at-rest protection, and...
BlackBerry NFC Security Overview
The presentation on NFC security will provide an overview of the security protections built into the BlackBerry platform to protect users, application developers...
Playing Defense: Staying on Top of Your Disaster Recovery Game
When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing playing...
All Security Webcasts
Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter
  1. View all newsletters | Privacy Policy
IT Jobs